Scientists Find Farthest Star Ever Detected

“The discovery of the lensed star was completely serendipitous — we weren’t looking for it,” said Dr. Patrick Kelly, a University of Minnesota astrophysicist and the leader of the team of scientists who made the discovery

This image shows the huge galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+223, whose light took over 5 billion years to reach us. The huge mass of the cluster is bending the light from more distant objects. The light from these objects has been magnified and distorted due to gravitational lensing. The same effect is creating multiple images of the same distant objects.

Astronomers have discovered what they say is the most distant star ever observed, a huge blue star dubbed "Icarus" more than 9 billion light-years from Earth, NBC News MACH reported.

While the star is about a million times more luminous than the sun, it is so far away that its glow is too faint to be detected by telescopes.

The star was visible only because astronomers employed a trick known as “gravitational lensing,” in which gravity from galaxies between Earth and the star acted as a sort of magnifying lens that amplified its light rays.

“The discovery of the lensed star was completely serendipitous — we weren’t looking for it,” Dr. Patrick Kelly, a University of Minnesota astrophysicist and the leader of the team of scientists who made the discovery, told NBC News MACH in an email.

Stephen Hawking Dies at 76

After years of battling ALS, scientist Stephen Hawking passed away today at his home in Cambridge, England. Chris Clackum has more on the amazing life of this brilliant man.